Battle Number and 2 other poems
Rage meets grace, unpacking deep patriarchal erasures. A defiant spirit reclaims identity…
Read more →In Memoriam — Keki Daruwalla: A Tribute, by Mrinalini Harchandrai
Wit in appropriate measure, sarcasm at the right moment — Mrinalini Harchandrai remembers a poet who was an officer of the word until the very end.
Keki’s broad range of subjects included classics to colonialism and contemporary local politics in his prolific career. His verse was filled with hometruths from myths, he used questions to zone his way into answers and his observations were lined with a curious imagination. Wit and sarcasm were used in appropriate measure. He was an officer of the word, a gentleman soul cut from a former world of grace and refinement, and yet he’d curate every line on the page with youthful zest.
His passing is a loss, not only to Indian literature but to its community of writers who were supported with his collegial generosity for generations.
Just leaving here some lines that are characteristically Keki:
“If there were a practicing goddess of peace
she would have celebrated
the judgement of the Five.
The trouble is, goddesses of peace
are hard to find; gods
of war are a-plenty.
Is mythology also arraigned
against genuine peace
(as against the spurious one)
and votes for dome batterers?
This leads to another question:
Does humanity deserve peace?
(Must ask Derrida or Foucault,
though I haven’t read the buggers.)”
http://poetryatsangam.com/2023/05/if-there-were-a-goddess-of-peace-by-keki-n-daruwalla/
Excerpted from Landfall, by Keki N. Daruwalla, Speaking Tiger (2023), and published in Poetry at Sangam
Mrinalini Harchandrai
Mrinalini Harchandrai is the author of ‘A Bombay in My Beat’, a collection of poetry. Her poem won first prize in The Barre (2017) and she was a finalist for the Stephen A. DiBiase Poetry Prize 2019. Her unpublished novel manuscript was selected as Notable Entry for the Disquiet International Literary Prize 2019. Her short fiction has been longlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2018 and Columbia Journal Spring 2020 Contest. Her work has been anthologized in RLFPA Editions’ Best Indian Poetry 2018 and The Brave New World of Goan Writing (2018, 2020).